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MIT Lecturer Defends His Standing As Email Inventor

Posted by timothy on from the for-some-values-of-invented dept.

hapworth writes "IT professionals were recently outraged to hear that the Smithsonian acquired some code from MIT lecturer VA Shiva Ayyadurai who has convinced no less august pubs than Time Magazine and The Washington Post that he invented email. While objectors howl on forums and message boards, VA Shiva Ayyadurai spoke up today to defend his standing as email's creator, claiming he doesn't regret not patenting it because he doesn't believe in software patents."

3 of 249 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Good point. by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Even if he is the first to use the term "email" (which I don't believe), electronic mail messages that even a modern email user would recognize had been in use for the better part of seven years by 1978. The guy is a liar, and he's trying to cover it up with clever semantics games. One can trace the evolution of modern email systems with trivial ease from the Unix version 1 mail command through the RFCs detailing out header formats, message body encoding, UUCP and SMTP transmission protocols right up to RFC2822 in 2001. I don't see this asshat's name on any of the RFCs or as an author of any of the mail variants. He's a liar, or nuts. In either case, if I was MIT, I'd be looking at giving this moron his walking papers.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  2. Re:Maybe... by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    and Ray used it to send e-mail between different machines in 1971 on the ARPANET. How this 1978 guy's claim has any legs I don't get

    There are a lot of things claimed by a lot of people but it does NOT mean they are the actual inventors.

    As far as I can recall, I've been using "emails" since 1975

    If that 1978 guy wants to claim that he invented "email", let him claim

    Those of us who know better, know better

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
  3. Re:Maybe... by GNUALMAFUERTE · · Score: 5, Insightful

    He claims that he created a program called "email", and he says, it was the first. Well, except for the fact that the Unix mail program dates from '72. And that there are RFCs for protocols referring to electronic mail way before that. If we want to be strict about it, email probably started with the telegraph.

    This guy is an idiot looking for attention.

    --
    WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?